Premiere.com just listed its
20 Hottest New Faces in Comedy list and a few of our TV favorites made the list. So just which TV stars are taking over the best comedy roles on the big screen?
Ed Helms
Age: 33
Comedy Credentials: The Daily Show, The Office
What’s So Funny? Knocked Up director and all-around comedy kingmaker Judd Apatow told Variety that Helms is a national treasure, even though “the nation does not know it yet,” when announcing that Helms will write and star in the buddy comedy A Whole New Hugh for Universal. So who are we to disagree? Helms has followed in the footsteps of his fellow Daily Show alum Steve Carell to both The Office on TV and Evan Almighty on the big screen, but will strike out on his own next year with supporting turns in Eddie Murphy’s Starship Dave and a cameo in Walk Hard.
Will Arnett
Age: 37
Comedy Credentials: Arrested Development, Blades of Glory
What’s So Funny? Ever since playing the incompetent magician Gob (pronounced Jobe) on Arrested Development, Arnett has turned the lovable jerk into an art form as the white-collar criminal Nelson Biederman IV in Let’s Go to Prison and the evil ice skater Stranz Van Waldenberg in Blades of Glory. Arnett isn’t going soft any time soon, as his turn as a sleazy boyfriend in Hot Rod attests, but the actor is getting a chance to show his more sensitive side — sort of — in the pregnancy comedy The Brothers Solomon, before re-teaming with Will Ferrell in the basketball comedy Semi-Pro.
Kristen Bell
Age: 27
Comedy Credentials: Veronica Mars, Reefer Madness
What’s So Funny? Television’s loss is cinema’s gain since Veronica Mars’s bubbly alter ego is making her move to the big screen — though it won’t be a real stretch. In the Judd Apatow–produced Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Bell is a TV star who ditches her boyfriend only to end up running into him with her new boyfriend in Hawaii. She’ll also play to her Veronica Mars fanbase as a geeky gal-Friday in the upcoming Fanboys. Bell’s first Hollywood horror film may not have had a Pulse, but then the acid-tongued actress came out swinging and singing in the subversive musical Reefer Madness. Expect big things from the 5′1″ star.
Jenna Fischer
Age: 33
Comedy Credentials: Blades of Glory, Lollilove
What’s So Funny? The Office star passed the big-screen test in March when she successfully translated the winsomeness of her lowly TV secretary Pam Beesley to a shy henchwoman in Blades of Glory. But Hollywood has bigger plans for Fischer: The actress is already committed to The Brothers Solomon, the faux rockumentary Walk Hard, and a role in Quebec, a film about two grocery-store middle managers fighting over a promotion. And future job prospects shouldn’t be a concern for Fischer; her directorial debut, Lollilove, about a Hollywood housewife’s attempts at charity, is a comic gem.
John Krasinski
Age: 31 (nope)
Comedy Credentials: The Office
What’s So Funny? Krasinski interned at Late Night With Conan O’Brien before becoming primetime TV’s sexiest everyguy on The Office, so his comedy cred isn’t in question. The unassuming star who‘s made an art of raising eyebrows as Jim on The Office will go highbrow later this year with the George Clooney–directed romantic comedy Leatherheads and his own directorial debut, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, based on the amusingly anthropological short-story collection of David Foster Wallace.
Check out the others who made the list: Amy Adams, Malin Ackerman, Elizabeth Banks, Dane Cook, Anna Faris, Dan Fogler, Bill Hader, Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Justin Long, Seth Rogan, Kristen Wiig, Andy Samberg, Joe Swanberg, Justin Theroux. (Click here to read up on each of these funny faces)
Thanks to Joanna for the tip.
